Key National Education Indicators Workshop Summary (2012) / Chapter Skim
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4 Indicators for Higher Education
4 Indicators for Higher Education
Pages 33-44
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From page 33... ...
The indicators suggested by presenters are listed in Table 4-1. CHARACTERISTICS OF INSTITUTIONS, SERVICE PROVIDERS, AND RESOURCES Graduation and Retention Rates The importance of tracking graduation rates was highlighted by most of the presenters, who also offered a variety of comments.
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From page 34... ...
KEY NATIONAL EDUCATION INDICATORS TABLE 4-1 Indicators Suggested for Higher Education CHARACTERISTICS OF INSTITUTIONS, SERVICE PROVIDERS, AND RESOURCES Graduation and retention rates, disaggregated to capture community college students and other nontraditional students, and perhaps also financial aid status, family income, and need for remediation at the time of matriculation Measure of the highest level of education attained by students 10 years after they first enrolled in a postsecondary institution Transfer rates -- students who successfully transfer from a community college to a 4-year institution or proportion of students who graduate or transfer within 4 to 6 years of normal completion time Educational progress rates, such as: measure of proportion of students college ready at matriculation; percentage of students who persist through graduation; completion rates for remedial coursework and progression to college-level coursework; cumulative credits earned; or an indicator tracking students K highest level of schooling in which they enroll Preparation for careers and job placement, using employment rates and salaries at 1 and 5 years postgraduation Research and development activity, using, e.g., spending on research and development, number of patents secured, or income earned through licenses; indicator for humanities and social sciences also needed INDIVIDUAL OUTCOMES Job placement and earnings Learning outcomes, such as: cognitive skills or functioning, occupational competence and preparedness; civic awareness and responsibility, global and intercultural competence, moral reasoning CONTEXT Navigational capital or understanding of college access and success process Participation in different kinds of colleges and programs, including distribution of students by key demographic characteristics (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, family income, disability status, and age) across different types of postsecondary institutions and higher education outcomes Net cost and affordability for families -- could include net cost of tuition and fees, minus grants, disaggregated by family income, or average student's loan burden relative to starting salary 34
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From page 35... ...
Transfer Rates A related and equally important measure, for Dougherty, is of students who successfully transfer from a community college to a 4-year institution without earning a degree at the community college. However, he added, community college graduation rates usually do not include students who transfer without having first received an associate's degree -- a complete picture of the contribution community colleges make would include these data.
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From page 36... ...
Richburg-Hayes also cited the importance of measuring institutions' effectiveness at remediation, and suggested using "the proportion of students who were not prepared for college-level work upon matriculation who pass the developmental course requirements within three semesters." Until "you deal with the missing skills," she noted, "it is not reasonable to think about graduation rates and transfer rates." Richburg-Hayes also advocated another indicator of students' progress through postsecondary education, the cumulative total degree-applicable credits students earn. Community college students tend to approach college differently from the way more traditional students do, she explained.
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From page 37... ...
Research and Development Activity Higher education institutions have responsibilities beyond educating students, observed Dougherty, which should also be monitored. Obvious measures, such as spending on research and development, number of patents secured, or income earned through licenses, are important but capture primarily activity in the natural and biomedical sciences.
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From page 38... ...
Learning Outcomes "The real hole in what we know about higher education is that, for all intents and purposes, we are unable to say anything at the state or national level about what students are learning and how much of it they are learning," argued Patrick Terenzini, and that was the focus of all of his suggested indicators. A widely cited regular report on higher education produced by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, Measuring Up,24 he noted, provided measures of college preparation, participation, access, affordability, and completion, for example, but reported little about what students learn at postsecondary institutions.
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From page 39... ...
25 For more information about these programs, see http://www.act.org/caap/ and http://www.collegiatelearningassessment.org/. 26 A participant noted that the National Adult Literacy Study includes a measure of technological literacy that could be used to characterize skills in that area by age cohort.
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From page 40... ...
across different types of postsecondary institutions and higher education outcomes. Affordability A related access issue is net cost and affordability for families, Dougherty added, which he suggested could be measured as the net costs of higher education in relation to average family income (National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, 2008)
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From page 41... ...
There are few metrics that are common across colleges and can be used to make valid comparisons across institutions and over time, she added. The postsecondary sector lacks a counterpart to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which provides a standardized measure of proficiency in academic subjects that permits comparison of student cohorts across time and among of states.
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From page 42... ...
For instance, he predicts that student participation in higher education in California is likely to increase by 100,000 per year every year for the next decade, while tight state budgets mean that funding for public institutions is either flat or declining. Public postsecondary institutions will not be able to meet the need, and, in his view, for-profit ones will be needed to fill the gap.
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From page 43... ...
"Then others can ask why, which characteristics and forces are contributing to differences across groups." Institutional Quality Some of the suggested indicators address a related issue -- what students actually learn in college -- but none directly address the quality of institutions, one participant noted. There are possible measures, this person added, such as exposure to curriculum relevant to particular goals, instructional quality, student engagement, diversity, institutional culture, for example.
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From page 44... ...
KEY NATIONAL EDUCATION INDICATORS to look at how much money a district has: one has to see how it is flowing into individual schools and even classrooms. Similarly, he went on, in the postsecondary sector, "we need to look at the capacity of institutions for organizational learning, because so much of what we are talking about is organizational change." As the sector grows and grows more diverse, the challenge of measuring its status, its quality, and what it offers to those who consume it, will become more complex, participants suggested.
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